


talk me down

by serendipityinwords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Ark AU, Canon Compliant, F/M, listen they met on the ark ok, not exactly an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6684802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityinwords/pseuds/serendipityinwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke’s been in solitary confinement for too long and her thoughts are getting too loud. So, the stranger’s voice is a welcomed distraction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	talk me down

**Author's Note:**

> me @myself: why would you write this?   
> me: Oh gosh, let me think. I have no idea. I wish I had an answer for that, but it would be interesting actually to see Bellamy and Clarke interact on The Ark because who knows they might have–
> 
> okay, so, the timeline is probably wrong and IM SORRY. but im tired and they met on the ark. I just have to reiterate that.

Clarke’s been alone for five weeks and it’s already too much.

She stares at the wall, her cage and her canvas, fingers cramped from holding the charcoal for too long. Her vision is blurred for a second so she has to blink a couple of time to actually see what she’s drawn. She thinks it might be the ground. Trees, mountains, seas; the whole deal. It’s not nearly done. It’s probably never going to be. She drops it and cranes her neck. There’s also some constellation she read about years ago. The beginning of her father’s face. She can still see the remnants of the giant “FUCK YOU, WELLS” she’d scrubbed away days ago. She couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

There isn’t a mirror in her cell but she’s sure her face is more charcoal than skin. She’s going to have to fix it soon. Eventually, she will. It’s just— _what’s the point?_ Why should she finish the drawing? Why should she scrub her face? Why should she go to sleep? Nothing is important enough and it’s all starting wear on her bones. She drops to the ground, her head against the cool metal door, when she starts sobbing. Heaving sobs. The kind that wracks her whole body. After a while, her heads starts to hurt and she has to slow down. Not a lot. Just enough for her to think.

She doesn’t understand loneliness like this. It’s deafening and blinding and numbing at the same time. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to not think. And she misses. She misses everything all the fucking time. Her father, her best friend, her mother. Who she used to be. She misses it.

“You okay in there?” she hears someone ask. She stills all at once. She briefly wonders if anyone’s allowed to be here. If she should be talking to him. Who he is. In the end, she decides she doesn’t care. His voice is low and gravelly. She wonders how long he’s been listening. Maybe she was just that loud.

She considers staying quiet until he leaves. But she’s alone in a way that scares her and she has nothing to lose anyway. “That depends,” she tries to say. Her voice is scratchy from all that crying and non-use. She clears her throat. “How loose is your definition of ‘okay’?”

He chuckles and stops abruptly. Like he hadn’t expected it. Clarke hadn’t either. It’s nice. There’s a warm feeling in her chest. It’s barely there, but it’s startling, nonetheless. There’s a pause and she has to wonder if he’s left.

“At this point?” he asks. She leans in closer to hear him. “Very loose.”

She frowns. “Your situation can’t possibly be worse than mine.” She thinks she’s teasing him. It’s been a while. She might just be mean. But he laughs and the warm feeling in her chest is back and bright. She misses this too.  

“It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?” he replies. And this time, she’s sure he’s teasing too.

“I guess,” she says. “It’s just a little hard to think about perspective when all you can see are four grey walls.” She doesn’t mention the drawings. Doesn’t want to.

“I can’t imagine.” It sounds like an inside joke he’s letting her in on. She doesn’t get it, but she laughs anyway. “Must get awfully lonely in there, delinquent,” he adds, like an afterthought.

She huffs out a laugh, letting herself picture it. Just another delinquent. No dead father. No betrayal lodged deep in her bones. No secret crushing her lungs. Just another girl who’d broken a couple of rules. She heaves a sigh and pulls her legs up to her chest.

“Yeah.”

She panics for a second, when he’s quiet for a little too long. She wonders if he’s left. She realizes she’s sad about it. It’s nice in a strange way; to be sad about something this small.

“I get lonely too,” he finally says, his voice thick. He’s still here and she’s glad. “All the time.” He might be crying. And she understands. She’s a faceless stranger and he seems so sad. Her heart breaks a little. _It doesn’t matter_ , she thinks. _He’s going to be dead soon_. Then, _we all are_.

But he doesn’t know that and she’s not going to be the one who tells him. She can’t bear it. She once thought she could. She was so naive. 

She swallows. “You okay, stranger?”

He laughs again. Whole and pretty. It’s a surprised laugh. Maybe a little desperate. But it’s a nice laugh. She thinks it might be okay if it’s the last one she ever hears.

She can’t hear the finer sounds he makes. But she pictures him heaving a sigh, head thudding against the other side of the door. She pictures him as tired as she is. “I don’t know.”

“You will be,” she lies.

A pause and she wonders if she’s gone too far. “You will, too.” She knows he’s lying too, so they’re even.

But it’s a nice sentiment. She might be. One day. If the things she’s sure will happen, _doesn’t_ happen. If miracles are real. If she’s wished on enough metaphorical shooting stars. He might be okay too. That’s also a nice thing to think about. She smiles and it doesn’t feel that strange on her face.

“You got any stories in you, stranger?” she asks, her head getting heavy. She’s exhausted, but her tears have dried up and she just wants to go to sleep, not afraid.

A beat then, “A few.”

And he tells her. He speaks of stories she vaguely knows. About the strength of Hercules and the cunning of the Gods. About Atlas carrying the Earth on his shoulders. About pride and spiders and love and never looking back.

In the end, he’s talking about Icarus flying too close to the sun, his voice going gentler, before she falls asleep.

_At least Icarus tried_ , she thinks right at the edge. _At least he tried._

The next day, she picks up the charcoal and draws again. _What’s the point?_ she asks herself a final time.  Maybe there isn’t. But she’s already drawing, so maybe there is. 

* * *

 

She sees him on the ground. Good looking despite his slicked back hair, with an air arrogance she can’t fully believe. He frowns at her as soon as she reminds him that the air might be toxic.

“If the air’s toxic, we’re dead anyway.”

She recognizes his voice, of course. But she doesn’t understand how it’s possible. This selfish, rude, power-hungry man cannot be the one boy who lulled her to sleep when the world was too loud. The boy who made her feel less lonely when she was convinced she was the last person in the universe.

So, she chooses to forget. She’s sure he has anyway.

* * *

 

Later, she’s tucked into him and her hand is lodged into his thick curls, and she thinks, _of course, he’s that boy._

Of course, he is.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm idontgiveaneffie on tumblr. Come cry with me about fictional characters.


End file.
